Retreat 2.0

One year ago, we were at quilt retreat in Oshkosh. And then the world started spinning rapidly.  We all had to adapt to the quarantines and the runs to the grocery and how to wear a mask. 

Why do I bring this up? Because I was again at the retreat where this  started for me. At the time I was taking a day from school. This year I was tutoring remotely. But being around the smaller group of ladies just brings back the memories. 

So here are some of the wonderful quilts that others worked on:

I loved this combination of colors and patchwork.

And I truly admired this bias edged phenomenon that looks amazing from afar.  This quilter really makes me want to try new techniques and challenge myself every time. 

This is oh, so beautiful made with batiks. The background is what really makes the focus glow.  this is her 2nd work using the same pattern.  Just incredible to look at!  And oh, so many pieces to cut!

Duh, ta da DAH! 

 And the reveal of the new quilt top. 

 The finish!           The Tic Tac Go quilt top!  

The borders are great! AND I love it!   All 89 inches square!  

Disregard the printed carpet as the backdrop please.

 

Rainbow Scrap Challenge

 I am late to the game. And I hadn't started any colors until this week.  I was going to make the zig zag RSC from 2018.  But I just couldn't stomach the corners anymore.  So I started a new block.  

And I am really happy I did . I was interested in making a curved log cabin and found this link: https://slaneyhandcraft.wordpress.com/2017/11/30/dogwood-quilt-tutorial/  They have really good pictures but call it a dogwood quilt.   The colored strips were cut at 1 1/2 inches and the white strips cut at 1 inch. My individual block is also adapted to finish at 5 and 3/4 inches. I just left the final row off .   I am thinking of modifying the sizes to make smaller and larger ones . Hmmm.

I just made 4 blocks into a circle.   I started with yellow as that was February's color for the RSC quilt for socrappy. This is a teacher who posts a linky party every Saturday , has  a new block to make each month and they color changes month randomly.   

Then I raided my green scraps for March and made this block.

And since I was on a roll, I searched for pink scraps.  Surprisingly, I was able to find enough different pink fabrics to whip up this block as well. Many of them were 30s fabrics already cut into strips. 

I think they turned out swell and am going to make a few extra units for when I assemble them for a big quilt at the end of the year. 

Lastly, I made this shamrock for my tier tray using buttons and a few beads to fill the holes. 

I need to paint the wood square and glue the shamrock onto it. But is was a fun little project.

I have the greatest in house wood guy; he cuts, he sands, and he does so many things for me.  What a guy!

                                    

Borders

 I have finished piecing sections of the border for this quilt: Tic Tac Go:  

These are the blocks laid out.

And here are the sections of piano key borders.   Here are a few:

And here is the rest of the stack of 69 sections. Each key is one inch finished. So there was lots of cutting and sorting of colors in piles to assemble. 

All I need is to finish cutting some background border and all the pieces and parts are ready to assemble.    DONE ! 

The center is 75 inches square when it will be together.  The  piano keys are cut at 6 inches. and the setting border will  be one and a half inches.   Totally the quilt at a whopping 89 inches.  Whew!

Spring flowers

 I have been slowly working on my wool applique for spring.  It has been a goal for for this month to finish the hand stitching and get this block done.  I just love the bright cheery colors and found this really neat design in a book. The on point setting also appealed to me. 

                                    

Other progress was to cut and begin sewing the piano keys border to my scrap quilt: Tic Tac Go.

I posted the layout a few days ago. I am going to assemble in next week on retreat. 

I have at least enough for 2 sides. And looking at the colors in the pictures.  I can see that I need a few more lights in the bunch. 

Tic Tac Go

On a roll to clean out and finish!   I was so excited!  I thought my retreat was this week and had been collecting things for the give away table.   And I had worked so hard to make the 25 squares for my scrap quilt to put together.   Each block has 85  pieces and is 15 inches finished size   Lots of cutting and sewing to make 9 patch and half square units; then I would assemble units to blocks.   I have no idea what the real name as I created mine from a photo  on Pinterest.  

So glad to look at a picture: found two triangles square turned.  Unfortunately, some of the blocks are not quite the same size as others.  We will tackle that problem next week. 

And then the email came:  The retreat is NEXT week.  Oh, my  I was so anxious, I just pushed it earlier in my mind.

So what to do with an extra week.  I got out a UFO to keep working on.  This was a Rainbow Scrap Challenge from 2018.  I was making long rows of color using strips and black and white to tie it together and give it punch. I pulled it out, I cut yellows for February's color. ( I am not a pink girl. ) I took apart the one row assembled incorrectly.  Resewed them.  INCORRECTLY again.  

So I took a break and cleaned my bookshelf  washing all the knick knacks, getting rid of old things. I now want to redo a few pieces in more farmhouse colors. The more you do, the more you find things to do. 

And after deliberations, I have decided to chuck the RSC blocks.  It goes to a give away table or the trash.  I do not care.  One more thing off my list.

So for my goals from January 1st: 

Rainbow Scrap UFO:   Tanked, gone, and out of my life.

Star challenge:  no progress, still hanging in the closet 

Scrap quilt (Tic Tac Go) :  ALL blocks made and ready to assemble

Sleepy fox:  Completed!

Winter mini quilt:   Completed!

New York Beauty: no progress

Daughter's Orange spinner:  Completed!

So lots of successes! 

Thinking spring

I was actually hot sitting in the sun today.  On Wednesday, it  had already melted away 9 inches of our snow in 2 warmer days. Which means the snow piles are still 4 feet tall. And now we have brown snow.  The edges of the road are brown from the dirt that had been shoved to the sides with the snow and can be seen now that the snow is melting.  

Ice sickles are longer than ever this year  The gutters have several inches of ice above the tops of them.

But even more good news: the robins arrived to Wisconsin. Spring can't be far. 

In between my machine sewing, I have been working on my wool applique.  FOR SPRING!

Here is the pieced background from a few weeks ago. The fabrics are from Corey Yoder. 

Then here are several shots of the refreshing coral wool in flower shapes. 

This shows the beading around the center of  the flower. 

Linking to Love, Laugh Quilt.  One of my favorite linky parties on Monday!

 

Sleepy Fox

 It is COMPLETED.  The sleepy fox baby quilt is DONE!  And I am so happy. I spent most of Tuesday afternoon hand sewing the binding.  Here is the cute woodland backing; it is a lovely soft fabric, not flannel, though.

For the quilting, I just outlined the trees and stitched in the ditch of the many triangles of the fox. I used my walking foot on my old, old Bernina. Best stitching I have done in a while. 

 I didn't want to over do it, but it seems a little wrinkly on the front side. 

't =

Here were some process photos of how I assembled the trees . I did take inspiration from 3rd story workshop which I found on Pinterest. She even had a tutorial on how she assembled the trees which I found long after mine were created. 

Here are some of the various "birch" trees that I created in previous week. 

This is the sleepy fox up close.  It was paper pieced  and here is the pattern from etsy: Sleepy fox pattern site It ends up 12 by 16 I think. 

And here is my lovely finished quilt. The binding is the same as the backing. 

Now looking at it, I think I need to iron it before mailing it. But it turned out great!  My husband twice has gone out of his way to compliment me on this project.  ( And I did lately tell him how it was a creative block at the time; the assembly of the trees was easier than I thought. But it was kind of putsy.

So sleep on little fox and I hope the precious little girl will love you, too. 

A little of this and a little of that

It has been a much more productive week. We quilters in Wisconsin had it cold and snow.  But that is a repeat of our usual conditions.  I think we have 2 feet of compacted accumulated snow. 

But I feel so badly for those in areas that were frozen and had the surprising arrival of snow and now the thaw. My son in Louisiana had ice and it impacted electricity and water for him for several days.  I know many other states are equally reeling from the rolling blackouts and travel conditions. 

But it is business as usual here. And I actually accomplished quite a bit. 

Here are my quarter square triangles early in the week.  I now have 60 completed along with a border set and fabrics all organized. 

Start with normal half square triangles. Draw line, sew quarter inch seams on both sides, cut and press.

Then turn one on top of the other  butting the seam together.  ( hence the pin in the center) .

And repeat: draw center line, sew on both sides, cut and press. 

All that is left is the trimming.  This is the method I have followed since I saw it in a Fons and Porter magazine many moons ago. 

I made 5 pairs at a time ending up with 10 quarter square blocks.

But I really was excited to get several small cleaning things done. My threads are organized and moved to a location further than my left side.  I cleaned my machine, changed the needle and even changed my cutting blade.  What a difference! 

I quilted my snowflakes in wool and have the binding on, but need to hand sew it today. Size is 26 inches square

Here is the back, a sparkly spotted fabric originally purchased for my son's graduation that we never had a party for. Lots left over 

And here is the front quilted. 

Lastly I started on the wool applique for a spring quilt.  I originally was going to do this for a stay at home round robin.  I am still going with that plan, just on my own time schedule. The background is pieced from a yellow and peach assortment of prints from a layer bar of Sugarcreek. 

 

Squirrel

 Oh, my! I got side tracked.  I was reading blogs.  Something we all do.  And I found Temecula Quilt Company.  Not a new site for me, but one I hadn't visited in a while.  ( I even got their mini postcards for Christmas.)

Here is a beautiful old quilt from silks and such. I quickly downloaded the pattern that  we are recreating for it. 

And they are doing a quilt along. Sort of.  Only make 20 hourglass units a week. That doesn't seem too hard.   

I dived in and did my first 12 without any issues.  And Off I Go.  I am even keeping up and now have over 40 of these completed. ( I am 3 weeks behind the start date; I need to catch up.) 

I really am working on getting to the finishing block to finish my Sleeping Fox baby quilt.   It is just staring at me and I can't seem to get in the groove.  And I have been spending lots of mental energy avoiding. UGHHHHH! The struggle is real. 

Quilting challenge

 Quilting Challenge Projects 2021  by Sheri McConnell at A Quilting Life

Do you need motiviation? At times, I sure do. Well, I found this awesome challenge on a Youtube video last night.  It is just the right thing for me:  small things build to bigger things. So I am also going to share it with my guild tonight as a personal challenge for people. I know we are all starved for interaction and the accountability may help, too. Here is the link if you would like it:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lq9dlfbddOaF3mupf4tSuVM2KVJiAWgz/view

Sheri is going to do 2 things for February:  one this little table topper,  and some half square triangles for a bigger project for Christmas.

As for me, I am going to take this idea and make pillow shams for my daughter and her new quilt I am finishing the binding for. ( See below)

The other will be to make this wool applique which I have the background pieced for. 

On the finishing front, I have happily completed the binding on my daughter's quilt.  Hooray. Another big project done.

Two edges were straight, and two of the edges were zigzagged from the sides of the hexagons. 

I had 12 WOF binding strips to attach. It is the longest I have ever attached, I think. 

Then as far as little things, I have made a few Valentine's decorations for the house.  The first is a pillow I saw on Pinterest and created with my own ideas for interfacing and weaving. 

The second is a little patchwork pillow. 

Then as far as little things, I have made a few Valentine's decorations for the house. 

Superbowl sewing

 Friday, I was so happy to get my daughter's quilt back from my longarm quilter. This top has been done since December. I had awaited backing and batting for some time. So I spent the afternoon first trimming the edges. Then I applied the binding by machine. ( It had already been prepped and was ready to go) Followed by the hours of the Superbowl game hand sewing the the binding to the other side. I was so happy I actually completed 3 sides of the binding. And this is the LONGEST binding I have ever done. 12 WOF strips. 

Here is an up close of the beautiful quilting pattern on the back of the quilt. The bright Kaffe Fassett fabric. These flowers are seriously bigger than a dinner plate.

The overall back ( only the center). You can't see the edges that are the zig zag from the large hexagonal blocks. 

Here is the centerish of the quilt held by 2 people. Pattern Tiny Dancer. It uses a special ruler, but I was able to use a 60 degree one I already possessed. ( saving 25 dollars).

And here is my dear dear husband holding it up. If you look closely, you can see the batting peeping out at the sides.

And as a treat I made spritz cookies for Valentine's Day. These are dipped in chocolate.( Definitely for my dear husband who love chocolate.) Love my Wilton cookie press. I bought it after Christmas one year on deep discount. It is not electric, but works like a charm. Cookies were mixed, baked, and dipped all in an hour. 

These are already packed to take to the family I help homework with. 

( Forgot to take the photo on the trays or counter.)